New Basketball Arena and Parking Garage Underway

Sports fans, as well as students, faculty and staff, have two new campus additions to look forward to in the coming months. As part of the Forward Together campaign, a new basketball arena and parking garage are slated to open that will better serve the needs of the university.

Work began on a new basketball arena, named the Pavilion at Ole Miss, in the spring of 2014 with an estimated completion date of Jan. 1, 2016.

With a budget of $79 million, the state-of-the-art facility will house just under 10,000 fans. The architectural firm is AECOM of Kansas City, Mo., with BL Harbert of Birmingham, Ala., serving as contractor.

“The arena has had a few weather delays, but it’s tracking for Jan. 1, 2016,” said Ian Banner, director of facilities planning and university architect.

As enrollment on campus continues to rise, the need for additional parking on campus has become a priority. The goal of the new parking garage adjacent to the arena is to address some of those needs and alleviate parking congestion on campus.

“Work began on the parking structure on Dec. 20, 2013,” Banner said. “It’s behind schedule, and we don’t have an opening date for it, but we hope very much that it will be in the next month.”

The cost of the 800-plus space parking garage is $23 million with Yates Construction serving as contractor.

“The need for the structure comes out of our master planning for the university,” Banner said. “As we all know we’ve experienced unprecedented growth, so the parking structure is in response to two things: one is the growth and the need, and two is to be able to serve not only the student and staff population but also the football and basketball populations when they come. The proximity will be convenient, and the fact that there are five levels of parking increases the density of parking, freeing up parking elsewhere on campus. It puts over 800 parking spaces relatively close to the center of campus and very close to the athletic facilities. In spite of all of that, it is still is working with the master plan which is to remove the congested parking from the center of campus.”